The past month has been extremely eventful for
everyone around the world. As this article will be online for decades to come, please
allow me a moment to put this article into some context. The Coronavirus
(Covid-19) has suddenly affected many people throughout the world. It has also caused the
cancellation, or delay, of a variety of shows from high-end audio and mechanical
timepieces to cars, etc. Summertime music concert tours have also been canceled,
or at the very least delayed. There's simply is not enough space to list every
music and high-end audio event that has been affected by the Coronavirus.

Show Cancellations And How They Are Being HandledPlease allow me to mention a few specifics, as they do pertain
to the music / high-end audio industry. NAMM, a pro audio event, has been
canceled and exhibitors will be getting a full refund. HIGH END in Munich was
early and, being the smart Germans who know mathematics, canceled their show
early on and is providing full refunds as well, or exhibitors can choose to use
their funds for HIGH END's 2021 event.

AXPONA decided to delay their April 2020 event
until August, yet we all know this is touch-and-go as none of us can foresee the
future of how today's Coronavirus situation sorts out. After I sent a personal e-mail to our Manufacturers eNewsletter list
asking for their thoughts, I received an overwhelming amount of e-mail replies.
Please understand, I consider many of you my friends and so it is your
safety that is of paramount importance. The wonderful news is that AXPONA
delayed their event before exhibitors had to send out their gear, so good save
and thanks AXPONA for delaying your event before exhibitor gear was on pallets
and on its way to Chicago.

Enjoy the Music.com does our best to
stay neutral in supporting all
American shows and our
extensive magazine partnerships over the years. We are cheerleaders, together,
for the success of the high-end audio industry. We also put our money where our
mouth is and pay many thousands of dollars each and every year to sponsor shows. It brings me joy today to announce
that Enjoy the Music.com, also featuring all our global partner magazines
as well, are sponsoring the Thursday night exhibitor / media press party for the Capital Audiofest
(CAF) 2020, Florida Audio Expo (FLAX) 2021, and the Rocky Mountain
International Audio Fest (RMAF) 2020.

Last year we sponsored AXPONA's Thursday night party and happily paid thousands of dollars for this privilege.
Stereophile also sponsored AXPONA's 2019 Thursday night party. Enjoy the Music.com wants to sponsor AXPONA 2020's Thursday night event, yet the fact is they are only allowing
Stereophile to do so. I enquired about sponsoring their 2021 event, yet
that seems to be a no-go. My big fear is that I
do not want the industry to think we are supporting every major American show except one. That is simply
not true and had planned to have five reviewers attend AXPONA 2020, which is the largest amount of staff members we've ever sent to report on
their Chicago event.

So, again, we are rooting for all shows and doing our best to support them all, so
pretty please with sugar on top and a cherry please don't take the lack of
Enjoy the Music.com's AXPONA sponsorship as anything more other than it is
since only
Stereophile is being allowed to sponsor it for 2020... and the foreseeable future as I
asked. We did place a full page color advertisement within their Event Book,
which you'll see we thank the industry if/when AXPONA happens next. Tell ya
what, here's the ad we planned to run within AXPONA's April 2020 Event Book.

On a related note, Enjoy the Music.com continues to ask a variety
of magazines to join us over the years. Just an FYI as want our readers to know we are open to partnering with all major publications and prominent websites.
Enjoy the Music.com truly wants to help the industry at large to
succeed. This is why we continually promote magazines owned by many others each
and every month on our website, on our social media pages, etc. As best I can
tell, no other magazine, either print or online, regularly promotes industry
(monthly and online) magazines owned by others.

Doing The Right Thing HIGH END in Munich are providing a full refund or to have
exhibitor's funds
roll over to their 2021 event. I've been talking to
many manufacturers
over the past few weeks and quite a few could use their capital back during
these trying times. Let us see if AXPONA also offers refunds as automobile,
timepiece, and high-end audio events are doing. We're all just
waiting for AXPONA to make a final decision.

As best I can tell from the
information I've received to date, after talking to a variety of those who
planned on exhibiting, they feel AXPONA should not force everyone to show during
2020 or lose their money in full. Of course AXPONA would probably never do that, it
could
be suicidal and no one wants that. At the very least, there should be an option of rolling over
exhibitor's very hard-earned funds for AXPONA 2021. None of us knows if the Coronavirus will
continue to cause cancellations of shows during the latter part of 2020, and if
rescheduled shows will then offer full refunds as is appropriate or keep pushing
their event dates forward into 2021. None of us have a crystal ball and can see
the future. BTW, just learned
moments ago that all paid InfoComm 2020 registrations are eligible for a full refund.

As for CAF and RMAF 2020, let us all hope these events do
continue on schedule. Again, none of us knows the future. It is this not knowing
that can cause some people, while perhaps being in a bit of a panic, to say
things that are not backed by facts on-the-ground. Only time will tell what the
future has in store for us all. So, for now, it appears AXPONA is holding on to
everyones money until they choose to make a final decision.

We Depend On The Smallest Of
Things

I can't help but remember
H.G. Wells' wonderful book The Wars of
the Worlds. No matter what humans did to fight the offending aliens, it was the
small things virtually unseen that helped us win. We humans are far more fragile
than we sometimes want to realize. There are many fundamental things that have
come into alignment, which has allowed our species to thrive here on this planet
we call Earth.

And so my musical selection below uses a quote from the brilliant mind of Carl Sagan,
who was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist,
author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other
natural sciences.

As always, in the end what really matters is that you...

Enjoy the Music,

Steven R. Rochlin

"We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we
fundamentally depend."

"Few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is;
where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward... or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. What
is the smallest piece of matter? Why do we remember the past and not the future? And why there is a
universe."
— Carl Sagan (1934-1996) wrote this introduction for A Brief History of
Time in 1988.